No Vacancy at 221c: a Sherlock Fanfiction
by wholockian221c
Summary: The daughter of a wealthy Australian diplomat, Celestia Firethorne has fled to London to escape her family's high expectations and a client turned stalker. (Full is story is up on Wattpad, but I am the original author!)
1. A Stranger on Baker Street

**Sherlock and all related characters and themes are property of BBC. Celestia Firethorne is my own original character and should not be used without prior consent.**  
A taxi pulled up to 221 Baker Street on a cold November afternoon. A figure emerged from the car after paying the driver generously with a flick of her gloved hand. Long reddish brown hair fell in waves back into the hood of her black fur-lined jacket. She paused a moment, her tall, slender shape leaning back to gaze at the building above with ambition burning in her eyes. She strode up to the door, her steps long and purposeful. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, double checking the address on the ad for the available flat before reaching out and grasping the bronze door knocker and knocking twice.  
For a full minute all was quiet and the stranger buried her hands in her pockets to ward off the freezing wind only to jerk them out again as the door flew open. There in front of her stood a middle-aged woman. She smiled. "Hello there, dear!" she said cheerfully. The stranger's posture remained pristine, but her lips curled up slightly in a polite smile. "So sorry for the wait, how horrid of me to keep you out there in the freezing cold!" Then, realizing that was precisely what she was doing at the moment, the woman opened the door wider and gestured for her to come in. "Come now! Wouldn't want you catching cold!" The door closed behind them as the woman stepped in, her high-heeled boots clicking on the wooden floors.  
"I'm Mrs. Hudson, by the way," the woman said, the smile back on her face as she extended her hand in greeting. Gracefully, the woman pulled off her leather gloves, stuffed them in her pocket, and took her hand with a smile. "And, uh, you are?" Mrs. Hudson inquired.  
"Interested in your flat," the woman answered.  
"Oh! Well um the upstairs is taken I'm afraid, all we have is-"  
"I'm interested in 221c ma'am" she interrupted.  
"Really, now?" Mrs. Hudson asked, her head cocked to the side, no doubt wondering why someone of this woman's stature would be interested in her basement.  
"Yes, may I please see it?"  
Mrs. Hudson nodded eagerly before guiding her down a flight of stairs and leading her into the property. It was a large space, larger then the other flats actually, and with more living space since there was but one bedroom. The woman's grey eyes swept over the empty rooms, taking in every detail as it came. Apparently the problems everyone else had found with the space were of no concern to this strange woman. She turned to Mrs. Hudson. "Mrs. Hudson, would you sell this flat to me?" she inquired, still looking off into the large master bedroom.  
"Sell?" Mrs. Hudson repeated in surprise. "Dear, the flat is for rent not-"  
"Oh everything is for sale for the right price, and please just call me Celeste," she replied, impatience and a twang of an accent creeping into her speech. "Now, please. For what would you sell this property to me?"  
"I'd say no less the 100,000," she admitted reluctantly.  
"I'll give you 2" the woman replied distractedly, rendering Mrs. Hudson speechless.  
"Is that all right? Shall I draw the papers up?" She inquired, looking back to the stunned woman.  
Mrs. Hudson looked up with wide eyes. "Yes, yes. That's quite alright..." she said delighted.  
"Good." Celeste said, as though she had simply decided what shoes to wear or where to go to dinner. "I'll be having this all remodeled," she continued, gesturing to the entirety of the place with her hand. "Is it alright if work begins immediately? I'll be able to have the papers officially made up by next week, but a head start would be wonderful seeing as though I'll have to find a place to stay in the meantime."  
"Yes, dearie of course! That's fine, why wouldn't it be?" The older woman's smile caused the skin around her eyes to crinkle in merriment, but suddenly those same eyes lit up.  
"There are two rooms upstairs and John just moved out!" she said in an excited voice. "Of course you'll have to talk to Sherlock _but_if it's only for a while-"  
"Who's Sherlock?" 


	2. Sherlock

"Well, um..." Mrs. Hudson paused, obviously trying to describe Sherlock with little success. Finally she said, "Have you really not seen any of the newspapers? You know Sherlock Holmes: _the world's only consulting detective_?"  
Celeste shook her head slightly in confusion.  
"I'm-uh. I'm not exactly from around here." She explained, losing her posh demeanor for a split second.  
Mrs. Hudson put a hand on her shoulder. "Then today's your lucky day! Come upstairs. I can make you a cup of tea and you can meet him yourself," she said with a smile.  
The pair exited 221c and Mrs. Hudson led her hurriedly up the stairs to 221b.  
"Sherlock!" she called, knocking once before opening the door and sticking her head in. "You must meet your new neighbor!" she said in an excited whisper.  
The detective lay sprawled out on his couch, staring up at the ceiling. He turned to her with a loud groan. "Well if I _must,_" he said sarcastically. "Bring them in, I'm about as bored as a swimmer in. _the_. _**desert**_" He enunciated the last words, aggravation obvious as his voice rose.  
Ignoring his hostile tone, Mrs. Hudson walked in, allowing Celeste to see into the flat.  
Her colorless eyes automatically swept over the space, analyzing each detail and becoming acquainted with each aspect of her new surroundings.  
"Observant, are we?" Sherlock asked, following her eyes for a moment before jumping up and striding over to her.  
He stood inches from her, only having to look down slightly due to her shoes and natural height. His eyebrows furrowed and he searched her face intently, deep in thought.  
She stood her ground, perfectly unperturbed and glared at him, staring, slightly bemused.  
Mrs. Hudson shifted uncomfortably a few feet from them. "Sherlock?" she called with a nervous laugh.  
He stepped back, his eyebrows raised. "Yes, yes," he muttered to himself. "Very interesting indeed..."  
Celeste turned her head in confusion. She opened her mouth once then closed it before deciding to speak. "I suppose this is where the detective part of his title comes in?" she said with mock cheerfulness, looking between Sherlock and Mrs. Hudson.  
Just then the door opened again and a sandy blond haired individual walked in.  
"Thought I'd drop in on my way home!" he said to Sherlock with a smile.  
He turned to Celeste. "Oh! Now who is this?"  
He turned to Sherlock and mouthed "client?".  
Sherlock shook his head in answer.  
"Possible new neighbor," he corrected with indifference.  
He walked up to her with a smile. "Well anyway, I'm John, John Watson."  
She took his hand with one of her perfectly manicured ones and offered him a small, but dazzlingly white, smile. "I'm Celestia," she elaborated, taking extra care to be English in accent. "But please, call me Celeste if you'd like."  
"Last name?" Sherlock commanded.  
She turned to him, then quickly averted his gaze. She took a moment, then answered with a small smile. "Firethorne."


	3. Firethorne?

Sherlock looked up in shock, first to Celestia and then to John. If he was looking for any kind of recognition in the man's face he was disappointed. The only emotion John's face held was confusion. "I knew it!" Sherlock cried suddenly, snapping his fingers, before jabbing a finger in Celeste's direction with a slight chuckle. "Oh I _knew_you weren't English! Oh you're..." He shook his finger. "You're clever," he said, shaking his head in dismay. "_Now_it makes sense!"  
Celestia bit her blood red lip nervously, put back by the recollection.  
"_What_makes sense Sherlock? Because at the moment you are making none," John said bluntly, bewilderment splayed across his face.  
"Celestia Firethorne... Really John?" he looked at him in disbelief. "William Firethorne?" he tried again. Still no light of understanding lit in his companion's eyes.  
"Allow me to elaborate for those who have been utterly in the dark for the past decade." He rolled his eyes.  
His hand flew out again, gesturing towards Celeste. "Her father, previously named," he said pointedly, "is quite possibly the wealthiest man in all of Austrailia."  
John raised an eyebrow. Suddenly realization dawned on him. "Oh! That William Firethorne! The one who advises the prime minister?" He asked, his eyes suddenly wide and engaged.  
"Yes, _John_, of course that William Firethorne!" Sherlock cried in exasperation.  
Mrs. Hudson, who had been making tea, bustled in. "What's with all the racket Sherlock? The poor dear looks as though you've been deducting her or whatever it is you do to upset people!"  
"She wasn't that lucky," John replied sarcastically.  
"And it's _deducing_, Mrs. Hudson, _please_." Sherlock rolled his eyes.  
All three of them turned to Celeste who had been ignored for the moment. Her perfectly contoured cheekbones were raised as she squinted her eyes shut for a moment. She exhaled heavily. She looked as though she wished she could disappear, to leave Baker Street with a wave of her tiny perfect hand. But she couldn't disappear and now she had the terrible misfortune of being stuck between a rock and a hard place, or a detective and a wall, to be precise. Why had she told them her name? She'd gone under a false one before, so why not now? But something told her that lying to Sherlock could end badly.  
"If I were you," John began, choosing his words carefully, "I would tell us what we need to know before he tells us what you don't want us to hear... because he will." He looked over at Sherlock who was staring at the wall, still only feet from her, muttering something under his breath, lost to the world.  
"He's right," she said quietly.  
"Oh!" Mrs. Hudson fussed, drawing out the word. "Come sit down and then you can tell us why you're so far from home."  
She pushed past Sherlock and pried Celestia off the wall she had been pushed into and sat her down on the couch.  
When everyone but Sherlock was seated, cup of tea in hand, Celestia began to speak. Her voice had regained its formal air, but her accent had slipped ever so slightly, it's Australian nature more evident.  
She had slipped out of her coat and draped it over the edge of the couch. Her ankles were crossed out of habit and her hands were folded in her lap. She wore a dark purple sweater that would have made cotton feel like sandpaper.  
Sherlock had turned around and was looking over her again, redefining his look on her now that his suspicions had been confirmed. Her brown hair held a reddish glow and fell to her shoulder blades, neither straight, nor curly. Her makeup was obvious, but stunning, making her face look as though it were naturally flawless in its dark, neutral tones. Her posture was perfect, but she wasn't graceful in a delicate way. Every movement she made spoke of power, strength, spirit, something that was probably frowned upon in such a formal family as the Firethorne's, who may as well have been royals.  
But why? Why was she here? Sherlock pondered these things, his ears perking up when he heard her finally begin to speak.  
"My name is, as you know, Celestia Firethorne. I was born to William and Grace, both of whom are still alive and living on our family estate back in Australia." She took a silent sip of tea. "The first thing you ought to understand is that my family is the pinnacle of formality, the leader in tradition and the most conservative lot you are bound to find anywhere. So as you might imagine, that would lead them to wish me the best of lives by marrying me off to some sickeningly rich fellow who is most likely related to me in some way, shape, or form."  
John nodded his head in hidden amusement.  
"This, of course, wasn't a demand, but the pressure had always been there and I'm afraid it may remain till the day I die." She spoke as bluntly as if she were speaking of the weather, saving Sherlock the pain of dealing with the strenuous issue of other people's emotions.  
"I love them dearly, but I couldn't stand the formality of our perfect little universe, I actually wanted to experience life, do something worthwhile. So I came across a man by the name of James Welsh. He ran a very prominent law firm in Sydney and we became good friends. He enticed my mind with stories of cases he had won and challenged me to try and reconfigure strategies on those he did not.  
Law...It's a game of masks. Put a face on something and you can make it look however you want it to. Everything can be manipulated to serve you, everything is, of course, two faced."  
At that Sherlock turned in interest towards the young woman who had invaded his little world. She was right of course, and a bloody good lawyer she'd make if she put it to use.  
"So," she looked down at the cup of tea, a mischievous smile creeping over her features, "I attended law school under a false identity."  
Mrs. Hudson looked to John in surprise who smirked with a short chuckle. It was Sherlock who spoke again.  
"You're too young to have finished law school," he said, emerging from the edge of the room where he had been shrouded in shadow.  
"28!" she countered.  
All three of them returned their eyes to her.  
"You... are 28?" John asked in disbelief. "You look as though you're about to enter college, not graduate from law school!"  
"I've already finished actually," she corrected him, unfazed by the looks of amazement that were being thrown her way.  
"Not important," Sherlock said with a wave of his hand, as he walked over to sit opposite of Celeste. He was trying to move away from any topic in which he was wrong. Sherlock Holmes, hated above all else, being wrong.  
"Anyway," she continued, "my parents know so that isn't the issue, that's not why I'm here."  
She paused a moment, mentally preparing herself for what she would reveal.  
"I started to help James with some cases. Nothing that actually brought me to court of course, my parents could only handle so much, I had to stay out of the media's eye. But there was one man. He came into the firm one day and asked to speak to me, I was going by a different name at the time. We sat down and he wanted me to speak to him about some basic matter, I don't even remember what it was. He got up, half way through the conversation, handed me an envelope and left. It read 'I know who you are', written with a typewriter it would seem. It later occurred to me that he hadn't told me his name, but I can tell you every last detail about his physical appearan-"  
"Photographic memory. You _do_ have a photographic memory, don't you?" Sherlock interrupted.  
"Why, yes..." She looked confused, but not nearly as confused as people usually were.  
Sherlock frowned. Perhaps he actually enjoyed making people react.  
She continued after a moment, dissolving the tension that was beginning to build.  
"Then the notes came. All kinds but never hand written, always typed or cut out of magazines. At first they were simply strange, that was when I was living in the estate, but when I moved out they started bordering on psychotic. Death threats, random pieces of information only I would know, and this is the last one I received before heading out.  
She grabbed her for her jacket. "It said, 'I'm watching you' and that was the last straw," she said quietly before her hand reached into a large pocket, hidden by fur, in search of the note.  
After a moment she knit her brow in frustration, turning the coat over and shaking in out. Her search became frantic, her perfect face now lined with worry.  
"What is it?" John asked, leaning forward in his chair with concern.  
"I-I swear it was in my pocket in the cab, I even took it out and then I put it in the zipper pocket specifically so it wouldn't fall out." Her voice was contorted with panic as she turned to them, her hair falling in her eyes.  
"It's gone."


End file.
